17 replies to this topic

[Volkan]

well just wanted to make u guys aware that some other group is hosting your release - in a sleazy way perhaps.
the issue is - its not quite clear who takes credit for the release.
well your credit page is inside the chapter somewhere - though its getting sandwiched by that groups own 2 credit pages at the start and end of the chapter.

here is the link http://onlinereader.mangapirate.net/Kubera/94/1

[Mizura]

Yeah, we know that mangapirates are also sc... wait a moment, that's The Company's scanlation! Even the credit is on there! So they've decided not to scanlate it themselves, and just take The Company's scanlation instead, and even put their OWN credits on the release? >: (

What the... okay, that's a new low for them. Usually they just pick whatever webtoon has become popular already and start releasing fast and crappy scanlations for them. But now they're trying to take credit for other people's releases. >: (

(thanks to the link by the way, and now I have screenshots, so they'll never be able to claim that they didn't do it)

Their credit:


Proof that it was The Company's version:

Edited by Mizura, 09 August 2012 - 03:09 PM.

[Rman200]

damn..thats low,stealing someone elses work and even putting credits?really?
MangaPirates Suck.

[Tyler Durden]

Have to admit ... putting your credits on someone else's work ... gotta sink really low

[Euodiachloris]

Have to admit ... putting your credits on someone else's work ... gotta sink really low

I think they were kind of hinting at their base-level of... sinkiness... when they named themselves, "MangaPirate", myself.

[Zageron]

We know. Just tell everyone to read it on Batoto, and we will do our best to always release Kubera before MP does.

[Pride]

We know. Just tell everyone to read it on Batoto, and we will do our best to always release Kubera before MP does.

Lol. Well glad to see its not discouraging your guys (:

[Euodiachloris]

We know. Just tell everyone to read it on Batoto, and we will do our best to always release Kubera before MP does.

Don't blow gaskets doing so, though. <hugs> Would rather have you for the long-haul, than these clowns for the short. 'Cos, if they keep pulling crap like this, they will eventually hang themselves.

[Mizura]

Don't push yourself that badly, guys! I once read one of their releases of Kubera and Gah! I regret doing so:
- Lots of language mistakes, plus their choice of sentences just don't "flow" well so they don't do justice to the original
- LQ editing
- Translations that don't make sense ("Asha, can you cast magic too" <- wtf? )
- Wrong genders

I'd rather you take your time with quality. Kubera is a tricky and subtle series: one bad translation and you miss several layers of subtlety. For example, I think they didn't translate correctly the part about Yuta not needing to close his eyes when facing a God. We longtime readers understand what this implies, since Gods need Rakshasas to have their eyes open to use insight. But Mangapirates evidently didn't understand that bit and mistranslated it, resulting in an inferior understanding of the characters and series (this is just one example, I remember seeing more differences with The Company, but I can't be arsed to re-read their version again).

Also, the editing for Kubera must be tricky, because all the bubbles are semi-transparent, so you have to fix the parts underneath the texts. If you rush then the bubbles will look weird. Plus, all those text effects. I've always been thoroughly impressed by how well The Company handles those (like when Shess formed sentences with flower petals, that was badass editing! )

Kubera is one of my favorites series, it makes me sad to see it mangled. I rely on the Company to provide me with precise translations that will allow me to understand this tricky series. For that, Mangapirates will never be enough, because they are not reliable in their translations.

I even saw Noblesse on Mangapirates' site. Egscans releases that in good quality within 24 hours, are they implying they're slow too?!

Edited by Mizura, 10 August 2012 - 12:33 AM.

[Yasma]

are they implying they're slow too?!

They just want to get their share of visitors before quality translation is out. Sad thing is that they welcome even people who come there to scold them :/ Bad publicity is publicity anyway, better to be reviled than ignored.

What pisses me most is that if original group releases new chapter before them they just happily grab it and mix with their own translations (not mention that they use all previous chapters too). They did it with Crepuscule before, and with Kubera now.

[Mizura]

^ [/completely appalled]

D:

[Euodiachloris]

I get it: it'd be better to not feed the trolls... and pass the idea along, then? 'Cos... I don't know what everybody else thinks... but these guys are just trolls with server-space to me (and, ad-revenue, probably)... They're certainly not into service with a smile.

[Ichypa]

Btw, thanks for giving us FOUR chapters over the past couple days. I nearly fainted with joy

[Arka]

It appears that MangaPirate consists of native Korean speakers, so they may not be as proficient at English. Also, the staff said that "Asha, can you cast magic too" is indeed what was said in the raws. MangaPirate does give credit sometimes, look at the bottom of their online reader and their twitter feed. They do give service with a smile---check out their comments section.

I think MangaPirate is actually receptive to joints, so The Company and MangaPirate can collaborate on doing this series. I for one would really like fast releases+high quality

[Mizura]

They say that, but they are obviously wrong. :\ Korean language is different from English: subjects can be left out, and other particles can perhaps be implied. But that does not mean that you can just leave them out in English as well. Also, I remind you that the ones translating Kubera for The Company are ALSO native speakers of Korean. They cooperate with proofreaders, who Ask them if a meaning is not clear and formulate the English accordingly. This adds time to the process.

I'm not as familiar with Korean, but to take the example of Japanese: Japanese often leaves out the subject. So, in Japanese, you would say "Ate." instead of "I ate." However, if you translate it as "Ate." in English, that would not make sense. In fact, it would be plain wrong.

For example, parts that Were wrong include:
- The part about magic
- They referred to Vinata as "he"
- They did not correctly translate the part about closing eyes
- They skipped the part about tolerating Halfs

The Company has been working on this series a long time, and as true fans of the series, they are careful about the subtleties of this series. I can tell that the people from Mangapirates probably don't know this series at all. That's why, whenever there's a subtle reference to information gathered in past chapters, or to information only available on the blog, the Company is able to translate it but Mangapirates is not.

And how the hell are the two are supposed to collaborate? If a French restaurant collaborates with McDonald, they won't suddenly find a way to make their quality dishes as fast as McDonald's hamburgers. If Mangapirates want to keep releasing fast versions, fine. But what they should Not have done was steal The Company's version and put their credit on it. "Sometimes" give credit doesn't cut it, they should not be crediting Themselves with the work that others have done.

I think you don't understand the goals of Mangapirates. Their goal is Not to bring more content to readers: that's why they only scanlate series that other groups are scanlating already. Their goal is to find any series that is Already popular and try to lure readers to their site to gain advertising dollars. That's why they even do scanlations of Noblesse, despite the fact that Egscans already releases them in high quality within much less than 24 hours of the raws. They are not trying to do a service to readers. If they were, they'd be bringing us new series instead.

Edited by Mizura, 10 August 2012 - 03:34 PM.

[Euodiachloris]

^Agreed.

If The Company had dropped any of their projects, then picking them up and doing the translations would be fine. Happens all the time when a scanlation team can't maintain their projects or falls apart. <shrugs>

"Being slow" doesn't equate with "dropped their project". Nor does it equate with "can't maintain their project"... as they demonstrably can. Schedule-slip occasionally happens: it's called "life". However... taking a project somebody is still doing, after their translations have shown a market for that particular story? I believe we are in "intellectual theft" territory, here, even though copyright isn't in anybody's camp but Naver's and all are playing games in the Fair-Use pool. Yar!

Just because it's in the Fair-Use, grey area doesn't mean it's suddenly OK to act like a mugger or car-jacker, you know. Particularly if your methods mean you're out to recoup more than the running costs of your site (which is what their model reeks of, to me): that could bring Naver down on everybody and close the game entirely.

Edited by Euodiachloris, 10 August 2012 - 03:44 PM.

[Mizura]

With Kubera, The Company isn't even slow. It had nearly caught up to the raws by bringing us 2 chapters per week, which is quite fast. Before Season 2 started, it was also pointless to do any faster, since there weren't any new chapters available anyway. Even if The Company hadn't released so many chapters this week, we would have fully caught up to the raws within 2 months (which is really nothing compared to the year or so I waited for most of the raws to get scanlated- no "friendly" mangapirate back then).

Thanks to all these releases, Kubera went from virtually unknown to somewhat known now, I see a lot more people in the forums, and its ranking in Batoto and Mangafox have gone up quite a bit. Notice, though, that Mangapirates did NOT graciously bring us fast releases when The Company was still dozens of chapters behind. It only decided to do so now, in the middle of the best arc of Season 1, which is also the climax of Season 1, and after Kubera had already acquired a decent readership.

I'd be much more sympathetic to Mangapirates if there were any indications that they're doing this for the sake of the readers, and if they didn't put their credits where their didn't belong. But Noblesse and Kubera, both of which are scanlated quite fast already (the first for newest releases, the second for catch-up releases), show that this isn't what they really care about.

Edited by Mizura, 10 August 2012 - 03:56 PM.

[Arka]

- They referred to Vinata as "he"

This is probably off-topic, but because of this I got a deja vu moment 'cause it reminded me of Second's <Courtship of a Phoenix> on FanFiction.net. It's really good, and will apparently tie into all the other fanfictions the author is planning